Love WIns

If you're on Twitter, you've undoubtedly heard some of the scandal involving Rob Bell, and I just wanted to add my two cents. I, for one, think it's absolutely incredible that he's a worldwide trending topic on Twitter; how crazy is that?

I have a ton of respect for Rob Bell. A ton. I read Velvet Elvis a few years and it changed my perspective so much. He's not about easy answers and ignorant-yet-blissful theology.

He's about questions... pondering, wrestling, believing in a God who doesn't give us all the answers.

When I first recognized salvation, I knew I needed to have a relationship with God that wasn't about Sunday School answers and neatly-packaged ideas. I needed questions with answers I'm not allowed to know. I needed a journey, needed to dive into something weird and mysterious.

And that's not an easy thing.

I talk to my sweet little friends who have everything perfectly figured out in their heads, always ready with a conversation-ending verse from scripture that supposedly answers all my questions and doubts. I love those friends dearly, but I don't really understand them. I'm not saying that black and white don't exist, just that they often combine to form gray. Truth is a hard thing to come by (yes, even when it comes to the Bible) and I think everyone has valuable opinions that don't need to be ignored.

It seems that having all the answers takes away the beauty of pursuit, maybe even takes away the pursuit altogether.

I guess I'm not really a black-and-white thinker, and I think that's a good way to be. But other people are black-and-white thinkers and they know that that is the only way to be. And some people think one thing and other people think other things and everyone thinks of himself or herself as being right.

So really, you can see the problem.

Anyways, I can easily get caught up in blissfully ignorant Sunday school answer theology, but the past few days for me have been full of questions and doubts, pondering and confusion, and Rob Bell is the first person I ever remember hearing say that all of that is okay.

All the questions, stabs in the dark, struggling, and wrestling...they're all okay.

God is bigger than my ideas... confusion... restlessness. Bigger than black and white and gray.

In the words of Rob Bell, "The moment God is figured out with nice neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God."

Much Love,

Marissa Lanae